The Day I Got a Girlfriend

Charlie slept about twelve hours and I got at least nine. There’s nothing like being sleep deprived and jetlagged to help you get through what would otherwise have been a restless night on an uncomfortable bed in an unfamiliar place. My back didn’t even hurt when I woke. I had been dreaming that Charlie and I were seated side-by-side at a library, looking at a picture of Michelle Obama. The president came up behind us and I said to him, “Your wife is a hot babe.” I immediately realized that this was a disrespectful thing to say to a man of his standing, so I added, “… Sir.”

Charlie and I reluctantly pulled ourselves out of bed, showered, and reconsolidated our belongings. We went down stairs and checked out and then went into the resort's third and newest building to drop our bags in Tony and Elena’s provisional room. We would all be relocated to a single room later that afternoon.

Looking southeast from our first building

Looking east from our balcony over Villa Marina

Northern view over Royal Country with mountains in the distance

Tony and Elena had a rest because they had already been up for hours, and Charlie and I went down to have breakfast at the resort’s restaurant. On the way we passed the woman who I had locked eyes with the day before in the lobby. She greeted me with more intense eye contact, placed her hand over her heart and bowed subtly. After we had passed her Charlie and I looked at one another and raised our eyebrows. “She looooves you,” he said.

The restaurant was serving a buffet of both standard American fare and Mexican food. We went for the latter and ate chilaquiles with both red and green salsa, pork taquitos, refried beans, and potatoes cooked with onions and peppers. Once again service took so long that we were antsy to leave by the time the bill was brought, but at least the food was good. Unfortunately, we had to listen to ABBA being played over the loudspeakers that surrounded the adjacent pool.

We four travelers had previously agreed that all we would do that day was sit by the pool. We found a comfy spot, adjusted the umbrella and proceeded to lounge around. It was quite windy so the temperature was almost perfect when sitting in the sun, but we knew our translucent Seattle skin would not allow us to sit in the sun all day. However, the shade proved to be a little too cold at times.

After a while, Charlie and I took a walk down the long beach, Playa Cerritos, next to the resort. The sand was wonderfully smooth and warm, and there weren’t many people around. We were approached by the occasional vendor selling hats, jewelry, and very fake "Cuban" cigars, but none of them were very pushy and left us alone after a simple, “No, gracias.”

Facing north on Playa Cerritos

Cha partaking

After the smokewalk we rejoined Tony and Elena at the pool. It was too hot to sit in the sun and a little too breezy to sit in the shade, so I moved from chair to chair. We watched a woman feed fruit to a large iguana who was parked under a palm tree. I had seen pictures of iguanas on the resort’s Trip Advisor page, but this was the first one I actually saw in person. A family noticed the iguana and approached it, the adults wisely keeping their distance. One busy bodied little boy traipsed around as little boys are wont to do, and the iguana watched intently to make sure there was no threat. Had the boy come any closer than he did, I feared he would be in for a nasty tail whip or even a bite.

King of Pool Island

Tony and Charlie had an appointment to talk to reception about the new room that we would all be moved into that afternoon, so they withdrew from the poolside to do so. They came back some time later and assured us that it was up to standards. I was very pleased when I finally saw it. The room was large and bright with big windows facing inland. We had a small kitchen, large dining table, and a bedroom with a king size bed and private balcony for Tony and Elena. There were too newer, albeit still slightly stained sofas with trundles similar to the ones we had planned sleeping on in the other room. We decided we would just push the sofas together to make a mega bed with retaining walls. It worked quite well.

In the afternoon we all decided to pay a visit to the supermarket to stock up on some basics so that we weren’t dependent on restaurants the entire week. I had been speaking to the staff in Spanish since we arrived and found that we tended to get better information when I did so. I spoke to a couple of bellboys about what was around for shopping and they immediately recommended a nearby American hypermarket chain. I told them we’d rather shop at a smaller local place. They discussed it a bit and, considering the long distance we would have to travel to reach these places and the fact that they would less accommodating to Elena’s wheelchair, they settled on the Mexican version of a different American hypermarket chain. I asked them to call us a taxi that would fit all of us and a wheelchair, but the car that showed up was just a standard compact sedan. We put Elena in the front seat and squeezed our remaining wide bodies into the back seat. It was a snug fit and I was tilted sideways on one hip for the whole ride. The rear bumper scraped the pavement as soon as we went over the first speed bump on our way out of the hotel.

The bellboys had told the driver where we wanted to go, but he immediately tried to convince us to go to the closer, more convenient American store. He offered to wait outside for us if we went there so that we didn’t have to call another taxi and quoted us a decent price for his troubles, so I relented. The driver was very kind and chatty along the way, switching back and forth between Spanish and simple English for the benefit of the other occupants. We shopped and returned to the resort where Charlie made us beef mole and rice with a side of cabbage and cucumber slaw. It was the best meal we’d had since arriving.

Later Charlie and I went to sit by the poolside so that he could smoke and I could read. I was surprised at how cold it was and was ill-prepared in terms of my clothing. It’s not supposed to be cold in Mexico! Several resort staff roamed around surveying the grounds. We had begun to suspect that the pith helmeted staff members were some kind of security team. Charlie spotted Intense Eye-contact Girl lurking nearby and teased, “There’s your girlfriend.”